I read all of the posts on this and other forums to guide me on getting my SLK320 safely up on jack stands. Well my repair job is finished and was successful. A few points about the jacking aspect:

I agree with all posters that said beware of the tire changing jack, that thing is downright scary. I once had the car slide sideways off of the jack while apposing rear wheel was still on the floor. Never get under the car with any roadside jack.

I got every opinion imaginable in the 3 forums that I use about jacking under the differential. A few guys with a lot of posts said that it was an approved MB proceedure so I went with this method although many said no way. I used a floor "trolley" with a rubber pad on the lifting sureface and centered it under the case. No apparent damage but only time will tell.

As far as the "rubber" lifting pads under the rocker near the tire jacking points. Mine are a very hard and slick plastic, or hardened rubber. When I placed a flat topped metal jack stand under this pad it slid around like a piece of furnitire on one of those teflon coated moving disks, scared the hell out of me. I had visions of the jack squirting out under a load like a rifle shot. Instead I used a pair of screw jacks with flat tilting heads that have an agressive non-skid surface on top (Northern Tool). When I lowered the car down on these stands, the non-skid points of the stands bit into the disks and the car was rock solid.

I always leave the floor jack under the differential to give me redundancy and of course block the front wheels to prevent movement in either direction.

Thanks for all of your inputs,

George